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If you're used to sitting down at Starbucks and signing into the Wi-Fi network with your pre-paid T-Mobile Hotspot time, get ready for a change. Though you may hardly notice.

Starting this spring and rolling across the country by the end of the year, the coffee chain is dropping T-Mobile as its Wi-Fi provider in 7,000 locations in the United States in favor of AT&T. This comes after working with T-Mobile for several years, but there's no word on why.

AT&T can now claim a 17,000 location strong hotspot network in the U.S. Many of those locations are actually operated by Wayport, such as the Wi-Fi found at thousands of McDonald's restaurants. But AT&T, in turn, provides the backhaul connection for those Wi-Fi connections.

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AT&T is going to be nice to current users. Starbucks says AT&T cut a deal with T-Mobile so current users can continue to access the Wi-Fi at Starbucks without paying extra. AT&T's own press release states that Starbucks card holders can have two free hours of Wi-Fi per day; it usually costs $3.99 per two hour session (T-Mobile charged $6 per hour). Users can also pay $19.99 a month, flat. Current subscribers to AT&T broadband services at home get free access at hotspots any time they want -- that goes for all the AT&T hotspots, Starbucks and non.

Bonus for you 100,000 baristas and other Starbucks employees: you get gratis access in any location. Hopefully, it's not your only raise this year.

Eric narrowly averted a career in food service when he began in tech publishing at Ziff-Davis over 20 years ago. He was on the founding staff of Windows Sources, FamilyPC, and Access Internet Magazine (all defunct, and it's not his fault). He's the author of two novels, BETA TEST ("an unusually lighthearted apocalyptic tale"--Publishers' Weekly) and KALI: THE GHOSTING OF SEPULCHER BAY. He works from his home in Ithaca, NY.
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